The hottest Civil-Military Substack posts right now

The speech will probably be old news quickly but still matters as a sign that the Republican Party is deeply servile to the president and as a moment future historians will point to.
It combined awkward, poorly delivered scripted passages with long, recycled rally riffs — the prepared parts sounded wooden and the rest was narcissistic blame-gaming that drew rapturous GOP applause.
The act is losing its novelty and energy; what used to be unpredictable and compelling now felt boring and low‑energy, weakening its ability to hold or grow a broad audience.

Both major parties are trading escalating, theatrical attacks that push politics toward a dangerous breaking point instead of calming things down.
Vague messages like 'you can refuse illegal orders' risk politicizing the military and intelligence communities, creating legal uncertainty that can paralyze officers and prompt resignations.
Violent threats and calls for punishment from the other side deepen retaliation and erode democratic norms, so both sides need to de-escalate to preserve governance and stability.

Xi has moved from purging enemies to purging close military allies, removing a whole generation of PLA leaders and tightening his personal control over the armed forces.
The leadership used dramatic public accusations — including claims of leaking nuclear secrets and corruption — as a tool to disgrace, justify, and deter purges beyond ordinary anti-corruption steps.
The shake-up leaves the Central Military Commission hollow, hurts morale and succession planning, and raises questions about military readiness and how Xi will staff and trust a younger cohort of commanders.

National Guardsmen in D.C. have been met with hostility and contempt. For example, Specialist Sarah Beckstrom was reportedly spat at by locals before she was killed in an ambush.
Progressive, well-off D.C. residents have openly expressed resistance to the National Guard and ICE, with calls to “resist” appearing on neighborhood listservs and other local venues.
The city’s strong political uniformity doesn’t fully explain the rancor, and the Guard’s mobilization under presidential orders has intensified local backlash and raised moral questions about how neighbors and service members are treated.

In January 1776, New York City was in panic and leaders debated sending troops to fortify the city against an expected British invasion.
The Continental Congress and George Washington considered bringing Connecticut forces into New York, which sparked a dispute over whether troops raised outside a colony should operate inside its borders.
That argument about outside military authority versus local control shows that debates over using force in cities are longstanding and not new.

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Xi has purged most of the PLA's senior uniformed leaders, effectively gutting the Central Military Commission and leaving the top command largely beheaded.
Xi believes a corrupt army is no army and has built an ongoing purge-driven system to root out corruption, even when that means removing close allies and princelings.
That belief is reinforced by Russia's battlefield failures and espionage fears, but the sweeping purges risk destroying institutional continuity and undermining the PLA's combat effectiveness.

The American system depends on clear civilian control of the military, and letting the military judge or override civilian leaders would risk praetorianism and damage democracy, so any fix must come from civilian institutions like Congress.
It is wrong to put the legal burden on commanders to refuse or judge orders; civilian leaders and legal offices must provide clear, lawful authorization so service members are not forced to choose between obedience and court-martial.
Recent politicization and weak civilian leadership are straining civil‑military relations through firings and public interventions, but Congress, the courts, state governments, and civil society remain the primary checks and make a military takeover unlikely.

Politics is being run as show business, with spectacle and fan loyalty prioritized over coherent policy or principle.
A high-profile naval operation in the Caribbean reportedly involved bombing small boats and even ordering strikes on shipwrecked survivors, conduct described as extrajudicial killing and a possible war crime under the law of armed conflict.
Turning military violence into entertainment corrodes the honor and effectiveness of the armed forces and degrades civic norms, driving away honorable recruits and normalizing brutality.